


Driven to distraction

by MissSynph (Synph)



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-19
Updated: 2012-10-19
Packaged: 2017-11-16 15:17:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/540864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synph/pseuds/MissSynph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce looks into feeding his bloodier hungers with the young photographer that is taking pictures of his home for a home design magazine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Driven to distraction

**Author's Note:**

> For jcolney.

Bruce can hear everything in his manor. He can hear the squeaks of the bats in the cave system several hundred feet underneath the foundations of his home. He can hear Alfred in the kitchen, putting the blood for Bruce’s meal out to thaw. Even the steady hum of traffic in the city down below the hill where Bruce’s ancestors built the manor with their bare hands and labor from the slums in the city reaches his ears.

With how powerful his advanced hearing is, it’s no surprise to Bruce that he can hear the thudding heartbeat of the young photographer currently wandering through the manor’s halls. Walking a few feet behind Bruce with his camera and face upturned, the young man --one Tim Drake-- is brimming with energy and excitement to the point where the smell of his rushing pulse sets Bruce on edge and makes his eyeteeth _ache_.

Bruce forces himself not to think of the hunger, closing his eyes as he walks as the furniture in the manor hasn’t been moved in years and he can walk in his sleep, and wills his eyeteeth to shrink back down to a more manageable size. “How long have you worked for the magazine?” Empty conversation comes easiest to Bruce as the smell of Tim’s rich red blood seems to linger on the back of his tongue. “Do you know how long they’ve been asking for a chance to do an article about the manor? I think in the seventies they must have spent months trying to get me --my father-- to even open the door to them.”

If Tim picks up on Bruce’s slip of the tongue, he doesn’t let on. A second passes painfully slow for Bruce and then he hears the rapid-fire whir of the camera clicking and taking a photograph followed by a pleased sounding sigh. “I’ve had the internship since high school,” Tim says as though Bruce isn’t staring at him and mentally licking his chops (and maybe the human simply _can’t_ sense his intent). “And I do actually know,” Tim says with a hint of amusement in his tone. “My father was volunteering there at the time and your father closed quite a few doors on him.”

Bruce doesn’t even have the slightest desire to feel shame. He smiles to himself but keeps most of the wattage a carefully hidden secret along with the hunger for Tim’s blood. “I’m sure he’d apologize for it if he could.”

Tim smiles and then holds up his camera. “Speaking of your parents,” he says, “I saw a portrait of your parents by the fireplace in the den. Do you mind if I get a few pictures of you in that room?”

Bruce wants to say yes with every fiber of his being. He wants to gather Tim up and press his fanged teeth into that pale skin until it breaks underneath the pressure and blood rushes into his mouth--

“Are you alright, Bruce?” Tim asks from closer to Bruce than he’s been the entire time of their meeting. “You seemed very far away for a moment. If you don’t want me to take the picture, I understand.”

This close up, Bruce can see the flow of blood as it rushes to color in a blush on Tim’s smooth c cheeks. It makes him even hungrier. It makes him even weaker. For that reason, Bruce is somewhat brusque with his refusal even though every individual cell in his body demands that he do whatever it takes to make Tim bend to him and bare his throat. “I don’t like thinking of my parents,” he tells the young photographer in a hard tone; “We’ll have to take the picture somewhere else.”

Tim is quick to hold up his hands in surrender and Bruce is helpless to deny how the smell of fresh sweat blooming on the palms of the youth’s hands makes him want to lick those thin fingers.

“We’ll use the downstairs library,” Bruce says in a decisive tone, nodding his head as he runs through the list of precautions set in place in case he loses himself to the hunger. “I want to be able to hear if my butler needs me.”

Tim nods his head and wipes his hands on the side of his jeans, first one hand and then the other. “That’s fine,” he says in a calm voice that hardly does belay the way that his heart is thudding a staccato beat in his chest. “Just lead the way. The sooner we finish here, the sooner I can get the article written up.”

It takes every remnant of Bruce long cast aside humanity to keep from gathering Tim up and telling him that he won’t be writing anything up. But he manages, mind already working on ways to keep Tim coming around.

Bruce has had several lifetimes to perfect the art of getting what he wants, and Tim will not be the exception.


End file.
